NZ Post announces mass staff lay-offs

Tuesday, 27 June 2023

The national mail carrier says its postal services are in decline.

NZ Post has told its workforce it plans to layoff off at least 750 staff.

The national mail carrier will soon begin consultation on reducing the number of its mail roles, which it says comes in response to its postal services no longer being used like they once were.

The 750 full-time equivalent roles would be phased out over the next five years, it confirmed.

A spokesperson for NZ Post stressed that the “people changes” were “going to be a slow adjustment”.

Stuff understands that staff were told about the mass redundancies early this morning, with meetings held at each of its branches.

The planned redundancies will cut about one fifth of its workforce and impact posties, processing and support staff and leadership roles. It currently employs 4500 staff.

NZ Post chief executive David Walsh said NZ Post needed to move towards a commercially sustainable model for mail delivery.

He said the state-owned enterprise had been making changes over the past decade to respond to the decline in mail.

“We are working to find the most efficient and cost-effective way to deliver the lower volume of mail for our customers,” said Walsh.

“Our business is evolving as New Zealanders are increasingly communicating online.”

Walsh said the number of mail items sent each year in this country had fallen to about 220 million items – down from over 1 billion annually 20 years ago.

NZ Post anticipates this will drop further to just 120 million items by 2028.

“Mail will continue to be in our future, but there will be less mail. We’re now looking to the next five years and how we continue to deliver mail to New Zealanders,” Walsh said.

Thirteen organisations have written to the Government, asking for them to stop the change.

“Mail decline isn’t unique to New Zealand. Postal services around the globe are responding to the same changes in communication and are focusing on the challenge of maintaining a service that has high operating costs and very low usage.”

Walsh said the proposed changes to lay off hundreds of staff would be gradual.

“The way we deliver mail in five years will look very different and we know our future workforce won’t be the same size and shape as it is today.

“While we evolve, we will need to continue our ongoing operational changes, continue to reduce costs and ensure we are setting the right price for the mail service to be sustainable.”

He said NZ Post was not planning any major changes to how the mail service operated at this time.

David Walsh says NZ Post needs to move towards a commercially sustainable model for mail delivery.

Walsh said the technology that was causing a decline in the number of letters being sent had led to growth in online shopping.

From July 1, the cost of sending a standard letter is set to increase by 30 cents to $2, international postage prices will increase and annual PO Box rental fees will also rise.

NZ Post is also increasing its postage price for bulk mail customers by 30%, meaning the cost of sending mail has increased 100% in the past five years for these customers.

Thirteen organisations representing community groups and businesses that will be significantly affected by the price rise sent a letter to ministers earlier this month asking them to amend the deed of understanding that exists between the Government and state-owned NZ Post.

They included the Magazine Publishers Association, Rural Women New Zealand, Grey Power and NZ Outdoor.

NZ Post has already reduced mail delivery in urban areas from six times a week to three times a week, consolidated delivery branches and processing sites and has introduced more automation to its business in response to the mail decline.